For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been working on the design of the character progression system. Now, it’s finally at a place where I can talk about it – meaning, I’ve gotten pretty far along in prototyping/implementing it, and feel reasonably confident the major points will not change… much. Probably. Unless they do. No design survives contact with implementation, and all that.

Basics
A player character has skills and aptitudes.

Aptitudes are the character’s core stats, but instead reflecting physical aspects (that aren’t much use in space), these reflect the character’s proficiency in different areas of expertise. The four aptitudes are “Combat”, “Leadership”, “Technology”, and “Industry”. The aptitude level acts as a cap for the level of every skill that the aptitude governs. As they level up, the player can spend aptitude points to increase these.

Skills have a direct impact on how the character performs – a skill may provide a damage bonus to weapons, extra ordnance points to use in equipping their ships, or extra fleet points so they can command a bigger fleet. Skills also unlock hull modifications, with higher skill levels unlocking more important modifications. The effect of a skill is based on its level, and the player can spend skill points to increase the level up to the level of the governing aptitude.

Each skill also has a synergy with up to two other skills. For example, “Ordnance Expert” normally increases the damage dealt by all of the ship’s weapons. But, if the character has points in “Mechanical Engineering”, “Ordnance Expert” will also decrease the ordnance point cost of mounting weapons.

Synergies go in both directions, though that’s not a requirement. It does, however, make for an interesting skill synergy structure – you have loops of skills that depend on each other, and if you’ve picked every skill in a loop, then they will all be fully synergized. For example, here’s what the loop involving most of the combat skills looks like (neighboring skills synergize each other):

That’s 6 skills, though – while the player could get all of them, it’d be a heavy investment, and one likely to hit diminishing returns. Getting that extra bit more effective in combat may not be worth nearly as much as forgoing some combat synergies and increasing the fleet size instead. A smaller loop of skills will be easier to get, and I expect that fitting these synergy loops and portions of loops together into a cohesive build is going to be a core part of building an effective character.

Progression
As the player’s character advances in level, the player makes choices about what aptitudes and skills to increase. In order for those choices to have meaning in the long run, it should not be possible to max out everything. This brings up a lot of questions. How many skills and aptitudes can be maxed out? Does that mean that there’s a level cap? What should the leveling curve look like?

Assuming half the aptitudes can be maxed out is a good starting point – it allows for the most permutations of aptitude choices. There are 6 pairs of aptitudes that can be picked (not counting character builds that spread the points out in a different way – for example, getting 10 (that’s the maximum) points in one aptitude and 5 each in two other ones).

Around 10 skills per aptitude seems like a reasonable number to aim for. Combat gameplay is mostly finished, and there are ~7-8 skills planned that deal with directly enhancing ship combat performance. It’s more important that skills don’t feel watered down, though – there’s no reason to try to hit a specific number, it’s just useful to consider what that number is likely to be.

So, what does having 10 skills per aptitude mean? Same as with picking aptitudes, once the player decides to max out an aptitude, they now get to pick the skills within it. Being able to max out all the skills would be bad, for the same reasons as before – so, again, let’s say the player can pick about half the skills in a given aptitude. For 2 maxed-out aptitudes, this means 10 maxed out skills.

With the above, we can figure out roughly how many skill and aptitude points the player should get every level – we’re looking at about a 1 to 5 or 1 to 4 ratio of aptitude to skill points gained. Something like 1 aptitude point every other level, and 2 skill points every level might work. Exactly what it ends up being depends on the pacing of the levels themselves and the final skill counts – but now we’ve laid the groundwork to make this an informed decision.

Level Curve
Should there be a level cap? The obvious answer is “yes” – if there isn’t one , then the player could max out everything. However, you could go different ways with it – a hard cap, where level X is the highest the player can get, and that’s that. An alternate way to do it is a soft cap – past a certain point, the experience gains required to advance become progressively more prohibitive. So those extra levels aren’t something you can plan a build around, but rather a small reward for sticking with a character for a long time.

What about the actual level curve? I think it’s good idea for the first several levels to be easy to gain – that way, an experienced player can map out their skill allocations to have a strong early-game build, and be assured of reaching them quickly. From that point to the soft cap, it should slow down – but just how much real-life time is required per level is something that we’ll have to work out when the campaign is finalized.

Closing Thoughts
The goal of this system is to provide the player with interesting choices in building their character. That doesn’t mean the highest possible number of choices – several features of the design actually work to reduce the explosion of choices, or at least guide them into more understandable patterns. Consider that if the player was simply to pick any 10 skills out of 40, we’d be talking about a billion possible combinations.

The key choice the player makes relatively early – which aptitudes they’ll increase – serves to cut down on the possible choices and make them more digestible. If you’ve only got 10 combat skills to choose from, that’s a lot easier than picking from 40 disparate skills. An aptitude pick lets the player make a high-level decision (e.g. “I’d like to focus on combat”) which then shapes the lower-level choices they have. Synergy loops play a similar role – helping create a pattern on which to base the choices.

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101 Comments:

AWESOME

September 8th, 2012 at 5:36 pm by
Xareh

FIRETRUCKING YES I KNEW IT!

September 8th, 2012 at 5:42 pm by
Faiter119

BOOM SHAKALAKA!
Alright more customization options/specialization, and a RPG element thrown in an already great game! This is exactly the kind of stuff I dream about…
Thank you for this great gift.

September 8th, 2012 at 5:55 pm by
Henry Spencer

Sounds great! Can’t wait to play with it.

September 8th, 2012 at 5:59 pm by
icepick37

GIMMI MY MINING DRONES!

I wanna be my industrial magnet. 8)

September 8th, 2012 at 6:04 pm by
The Soldier

Interesting read, seems well thought out, as always. I like your staggered decision making approach. And I think an asymptotic levelcap has far less frustration potential then just being finished with a character.
Question 1: Will the next release also include aptitudes for the game aspects that are not yet there?
Question 2: This is very gameplay oriented (which is good), did you/will you also consider some fancifully character traits (like some in the 3 skills suggestion thread)that could individualize your character on a lore/storytelling level?

September 8th, 2012 at 6:18 pm by
Gothars

Oooh! Great progress!

September 8th, 2012 at 6:20 pm by
Syntria [QubeTubers]

One more thing: It might be better to keep the skill names consistent, they vary in describing a character trait (Ordnance Expert) or an activity (Target Analysis).

September 8th, 2012 at 6:26 pm by
Gothars

I like the idea of synergy loops. It makes things much more interesting when choices are meant to combo into each other instead of discouraging certain groupings because they’re ‘overpowered’.

September 8th, 2012 at 6:31 pm by
DelicateTask

I think this is a tad too deep and we know too little to really make much of a reply other than…

WOOOTS!

September 8th, 2012 at 7:41 pm by
Dri

This is where the game begins to get really addictive I think

September 8th, 2012 at 9:27 pm by
TheCornerBro

A Technology aptitude??

Does this imply that I can’t have an Aurora in my fleet (through capture or purchace) unless I have a certain Tech aptitude/skillset, or that I can’t build Auroras for my fleets unless I have ditto?

September 8th, 2012 at 11:06 pm by
chevbob

@Gothars:
#1 – Well, there’s Industry. It’s not slated to get any skills for next release (though a few rightly belong there, but don’t make sense to put there until it’s more fleshed out – wouldn’t be worth getting just for those couple of skills).
#2 – Maybe, we’ll see. Have to get the baseline down and working before considering anything fanciful
#3 – Hmm. Maybe – but I’m not keen on changing up things like “Computer Systems”, etc. I’m not sure “cleaning” that up is good for much beyond my OCD.

@chevbob: It most likely doesn’t mean that, no. It does mean that you’d have to have certain skills to put certain fancy hullmods on it, though.

September 8th, 2012 at 11:19 pm by
Alex

Do you know if the synergies will depend on the levels of the skills involved? Or will the synergies be one shot bonuses? E.g: Will having more ranks in Mechanical Engineering make its synergy with Ordinance Expert more powerful?

September 8th, 2012 at 11:46 pm by
Thaago

Sounds great, my only advice would be to not have players commit to permanent choices that affect game play before they understand the ramifications of the decisions they’ll be making (although doing 5% more damage in combat seems pretty straight forward). As for a soft-cap, I totally agree. Games like Mount and Blade I think did this really well.

September 9th, 2012 at 1:45 am by
Nick

It all sounds great – especially synergies. It reminds me about Supreme Commander adjacenty bonuses. You are not forced to use that, but it is still a great bonus to consider taking it

As for the level cap – I will “vote” on soft cap. I do not think that a sandbox game should use hard one. So technically it should be possible to level up all skills… Technically, but reality is that such thing is VERY time consuming and not likely to happen.

I would like also to advice to NOT use a dimnishing effect in skills. If first level skill gives You +5% trade income, than second should give +10%, third +15% and so. But this is only my opinion.

September 9th, 2012 at 5:10 am by
Modest

upgrading is the funniest of many games to me, so you are like asking me if there should be a cap for fun ,if there should be a requirement for more fun and if the players are not allowed to max out all the funs, etc………

September 9th, 2012 at 7:24 am by
xyz

soft cap vs hard cap is like, dimnishing fun vs limited fun.

September 9th, 2012 at 7:25 am by
xyz

Soft cap all the way, even makes sense from a immersion point of view, theres always more to learn and ways to improve, but it takes more effort after your brain is full/you already know almost everything.

September 9th, 2012 at 7:55 am by
Menden

Finally the RPG elemnent comes to light, and a nice one.
As most say, a soft level cap is better for a continuous fun at later stages in the game. With a hard level limit we often feel we can’t progress anymore and lose much fun.
What could work is to have a hard limit in the total skill points but still have some kind of “stat gain” per level beyond the cap. Maybe something like an overall bonus of 0.1% per level or things like that.

Skill synergy is somethin rarely seen (maybe due to it’s implementation and usefullness to some), the last time I saw a proper one being Diablo II, and could be a very nice feature should they be useful and well balanced.

Anyway, Many thanks for another update on the developpement.

September 9th, 2012 at 8:18 am by
Troll

@Thaago: Skill-level-based, and capped by the level of the skill being synergized.

@Nick: That’s an interesting (read: complicated) question. I definitely see your point – “newbie traps” aren’t a good thing – but it’s not all straightforward. It’s much easier to say “let’s just allow respecs” if you’re dealing with a static world. If you’re not, and your character’s build has roots in the world, that can be a problem – both conceptually and mechanics-wise.

@Modest: Just to clarify – what I meant by “diminishing returns” isn’t that the skill bonus would be explicitly like that. It’s just that past a certain point, the next +X in one area may mean less than +Y in another. A hypothetical example: +10% damage means less if you’ve already got +1000% than if you’ve got +0%.

@xyz: Upgrading, for me, is fun because of the choices you have to make. If those don’t mean much (because in the end, you’ll have everything, no matter what you picked along the way), then this is a bad thing. Yeah, there’s some fun in just getting better and progressing – but for long-term replayability, there have to be some meaningful choices as well.

Are we going to get the ability to control multiple fleets that would reduce the sometimes tedious chase for a battle?

September 9th, 2012 at 12:10 pm by
Xulu

p.s I haven’t played in a while, mainly because of this reason. Maybe it’s already in or at least planned.

I love the game, but my feedback would be to have multiple fleets which would open up many campaign features, trapping/luring opponents into battle, gaining map control, pirating to grind money/mods. This would vastly improve longevity and get through the annoying, and frankly off-putting phase of chasing faster fleets.

Fantastic so far, following keenly

September 9th, 2012 at 12:21 pm by
Xulu

IM rooting for soft cap. I want you to be able to if you eventually be able to get all skill point in game. But i want it implemented in a wat that for the last level it would take an ungodly amount of time paying( like 2 weeks of game time). Im an upgrade freak. If i play a game I have to have upgrades. Also will there be improvment to your skills like damage flux venting ect by just levling up by a small perceentage?

September 9th, 2012 at 6:00 pm by
Farlarzia

I agree, I’d love a exponential soft-cap system.

As suggested before, an Aptitude and Skill based system is just begging to be augmented with a character-trait system.
Maybe even a system where you pick positive and negative traits at character creation (only). Min-maxing may become an issue there, but then, if it’s somewhat balanced and people enjoy it, then it’s not really a problem, is it?

September 9th, 2012 at 6:18 pm by
Naros

@Naros : Yeah a character trait (like many great RPGs such as Arcanum, Fallout series, paper ones…) would increase replayability and uniqueness to another notch. I too would love to see a “character creation” phase.

September 9th, 2012 at 7:52 pm by
Troll

I actually personally like the idea of being able to pick some positive traits at the beginning for free, but also being able to get more points to spend by picking optional negative traits. People may disagree with me, but I like to sometimes pick negative traits for a character because it can make for a funny story coming up with why he/she has certain deficiencies.

September 9th, 2012 at 7:53 pm by
DelicateTask

will you add active skills?

September 9th, 2012 at 11:36 pm by
xyz

@Xulu: TBD. For now, you can stow some of your fleet at the abandoned station, or just hang out on top of the planet where the fleets you’re trying to attack spawn. Chances are if it’s running away, it’s too weak to give you an interesting fight anyway, though.

@Farlarzia: I wouldn’t equate “soft cap” with “being able to get everything”. It’s definitely not that.

@xyz: Not for combat – it’s not suited for that. Probably not elsewhere, either, though I can see skills potentially unlocking certain interactions.

September 9th, 2012 at 11:52 pm by
Alex

Are you planning on having any passive skills/traits etc that effect the game world around you?

I’m not sure if you’re planning on having little random things that can spawn in the world (to go with these bonuses they would be things like debris fields after battles, derelict ships/stations/undiscovered moons, or asteroids and asteroid fields).

Also will there be things which effect post-battle? ie ‘Salvage team: x% chance to get increased salvage after encounters’

Personally, for me, my ideal game like this would allow me to set out into the universe and explore, finding awesome things to do awesome things with (something like Phase Missiles came to mind for this – a cache of pre-collapse super-tech missiles that require x skill to unlock the cahce they’re in, x skill to equip them and x skill to use them with any kind of success)

September 10th, 2012 at 12:51 am by
Adam

I’m really excited to see this added to the game, it will add a ton of addiction to it for me. Grow your ship, grow your fleet, grow your character. Good stuff, very good stuff.

September 10th, 2012 at 4:10 am by
SeaBee

Will this sort of stuff be in the next update, or is it to early an idea or something?

When can I expect this to be out so I cross out a week in my calendar accordingly and get a desk side stock of food?

September 11th, 2012 at 1:19 pm by
Farlarzia

More customisation, more things to do… If this is going where I think it’s going, the universe will not be vast enough to contain my excitement. I’m the sort of person who spends far too much time on character creation.

Like Xulu pointed out (I think?), I was sometimes having problems trying to find fleets willing to fight me. It’s not a big problem or something that even happened very often, but I remember when I was a particular size; fleets were either always running away or big enough to destroy me without much competition. I’m not sure whether other people have this problem, maybe I was just unlucky.

Also, I really like these updates. It’s good to know you’re actually thinking about these things rather than just going with whatever you first think of.

September 12th, 2012 at 8:30 am by
Azathoth

Just a quick note, when it comes to % please have them add together rather then stack so that 5 base damage plus 2 skills to increase it by 10% becomes 6 rather then 6.05 seems rather small but when you get to the higher numbers it helps stop the insane combinations.

September 12th, 2012 at 2:16 pm by
Wendigo

@Adam: It’s a possibility, yeah. Not in this batch since it’s more combat-focused.

@UprightMan: Yeah, that’s for the next update. When that’ll come out is another question.

@Farlarzia: “When it’s ready”. Were you expecting any other answer?

@Wendigo: One step ahead of you Plus % bonuses are additive, and minus % bonuses (such as “reduces damage taken”) are multiplicative, to avoid it getting out of hand.

September 12th, 2012 at 2:20 pm by
Alex

Not really no. So i don’t know when you stock up on food or cross out a week on my calender? fine. SAD FACE
What different synergy wheels can I hope yo expect?

September 12th, 2012 at 5:21 pm by
Farlarzia

A soft cap sounds really nice, I like it when there isn’t a hard cap which just says this is as powerful you can get, whilst a soft cap will reward you for sticking with it.

September 12th, 2012 at 5:31 pm by
nanaki422

I just want you to know, this is a game I have been looking forward to for a long time, and stumbled across it on a youtube video from The Cynical Brit. I bought the game in show of my support and I hope you keep the content coming, this is great thus far

September 13th, 2012 at 7:41 pm by
Lazerus

I don’t think the aim should be necessarily to prohibit the player from gaining every skill. Think Skyrim – it’s entirely possible to max out every skill and get to level 81.5. I’ve done it, in fact. It takes a while but there’s no reason to try and make it unattainable, either through an annoying steep soft cap or a hard cap. The possibility should be put back into the post-endgame, certainly, barring excessive grinding, and maybe some some kind of mild soft cap would be appropriate, but I for one prefer regular leveling and power progression. Really, as long as gaining every skill is practically doable, if tedious and not necessarily worth it, I’d be happy. It’s not like this is a multiplayer game – the only game balance someone could possibly ruin is their own, and if they’re doing that, it might be okay to just let them.

September 13th, 2012 at 8:19 pm by
Nalyd

@Lazerus: Thanks for your support!

@Nalyd: It’s not about balance, but about creating meaningful choices. There can also be meaningful choices outside of character progression, of course – what you actually *do* in the game – but not having those in the character build would be a missed opportunity.

Also: I feel like “soft cap” is being misinterpreted here, from what I actually mean by it. It doesn’t mean you can get ALL the skills – it just means that you can eke out a /few/ more skill points, eventually. Giving some other ideas consideration for post-level-cap (whatever kind it is, hard or soft) advancement, though.

September 14th, 2012 at 12:55 am by
Alex

Hey with dagger wing I notice that sometimes they act as if they still have Pd lasers and get into trouble unnecessarily. Also with xyphos fighter wing the second one will just follow the first on andw ont turn of his own accord. This means that he only fires his main weapon If when hes following they cross his line of sight. Thanks.

September 15th, 2012 at 3:01 pm by
Farlarzia

I love the game so far, but this just makes me really angry. Not just the whole idiotic level cap, but the attitude.
“Should there be a level cap? The obvious answer is “yes” – if there isn’t one , then the player could max out everything.”
OBVIOUS? So, restricting player choice is not just your personal preference, it is the only thing you guys can comprehend?
Or, you are so panicked by the thought that a player might ruin his day by ending up with two similar characters during a few months of grinding, that you simply MUST save us from ourselves by ruining the game before that happens?
Or, even worse, two different people on different sides of the world could, quite accidentally, end up with similar characters and though they would never know about each other, YOU WOULD KNOW!, How horrible!
By now, you probably know that I HATE hard level caps. Its not just something that ruins my day when I hit it. It also upsets me when I have to start planning from level 1 about the character build I want
to play a few weeks later. And a mistake can lead to inevitable ruin. And anyway, sooner or later getting EXP will cease to be fun.

Its like having cancer. Painful, and you are reminded that if you dont die of it, you are going to die someday, and then theres nothing you can do.

Just rather forget the whole RPG element bit if you have to do something like this to upset me. Unless you are planning a DLC worth big bucks that removes the artificial level cap.
Is this going to be exclusively a multiplayer game? I hope not. So no cap needed.
Is this going to be a very heavy RPG where the main characters mediocrity, humanity and fallibility play a huge part? Certainly not. Is this going to be a game with multiple character classes like warriors and wizards with tactics based on the strengths and weaknesses of each one? Not to my knowledge.
Are there other ways to specialize a character, that do not use a level cap? YES THERE ARE!

And is this going to be a heavily plot based, railroaded game, or a sandbox where the player is given freedom to do things freely?

If this is going to be a game which offers freedom, the last thing you want to do is to take it away!

Ok, so youve been to school and studied game theory. Good. But dont take everything as holy law.
Meaningful character development is not about restricting the player in as many ways as you can, but
—- MAKING LEVELING UP FUN!—-
If you have a gazillion skills that each add 1% to one of a hundred skill, and you gain two every minute, its not fun, its like sitting in office and doing taxes. If you get a gazillion % to a skill each level and gain a level every three weeks, its not fun. If you get a character that wins a battle just by being there, its not fun.
What its about, is -balance-.
In pen-and-paper roleplaying games, you should get an average of 1 level for every gaming session, or somewhat less. Each level should give significant bonuses, but never make the character overpowered. An increase of 5 to 10% is pretty good.

If I can equip 1 small laser or machine gun to a ship that could not fit one before, thats a pretty nice levelup reward. That makes it fun and makes the RPG element useful. Its something the player can see, its something clearly better. 5% speed increase for every ship means a lot more, but its not worth the time to program it, because if you cant see the difference, its not fun.
If the difference I see is that I am prohibited from doing something in the game, or gaining something, or reaching something, its not about gaining something every now and then, its about taking something away for good. Not fun at all.

Ok. Heres a short rule for leveling up.
-Leveling up is like collecting-.
It should not be too easy to get something, but not too hard. And each piece should be worth getting.
But in the end, people decide for themselves what they want to collect. Stamps, coins, butterflies, teacups, or whatever.
Some people only collect coins. Or stamps. Some do not collect anything. But it is their choice, NOT YOURS.
If people want to collect everything there is to collect, why would you prevent them? After all, they pay you for the chance to do so!
A curve is better than a cap. I can live with a curve.
If you want to limit the character from getting every trait, use traits that prohibit from getting the other, like Frightening Visage and Diplomacy. Cant have both.
Or, just make some more complicated to get, like finding in a remote place.
Just, dont punish the player for playing too long, or playing too well. Those are good things. Right?

September 15th, 2012 at 7:23 pm by
Wooria

Let’s try to keep things civilized. I don’t want to have to start moderating the comments, but it’s getting close to it – not because of the content, but because of the tone.

Now, about the topic at hand: what I mean is, if the choices you make don’t matter in the long run, then they aren’t as interesting or meaningful. If the endgame character is always the same, that’d put a major dent in replayability – regardless of other ways in which a particular game has gone differently. So, yes, being able to max out everything is undesirable from that perspective.

Now, if you don’t care about that, and just want to build an all-powerful character, then you might prefer no cap. It’s certainly your prerogative to feel that way. Personally, I don’t, and am going to build the game as best I can, given my feelings about how things should work for it to be the most fun. (From my perspective, which may not – and looks like it isn’t – the same as yours. Not that I need to spell that out – I think that it’s probably understood that something as nebulous as “fun” is subjective, but I’d rather be abundantly clear here.)

If the way it ends up turns out to be something that bothers you, you can always mod it, as this particular aspect of it should be fairly easy to mod. Or – in all seriousness, and with no offense meant – you could play something else that’s better suited to your taste. Personally, I hope you give it a chance and actually see how it works out before knocking it further.

September 15th, 2012 at 8:22 pm by
Alex

Yes you bought a game. Its not your game to make so leave the guys that do it for a living to it. Its not your right to tell people what you can and cant do. Don’t like it then don’t play it. Simple. Or if you don’t agree with something hen mod it so you do agree.

September 16th, 2012 at 12:30 am by
Farlarzia

Sounds like a great addition to this great game. good work, and well done.

September 16th, 2012 at 12:57 pm by
Quikfire

Alex – off-topic, but:
Given the frequency that the question arises, would you consider changing the FAQ question from “When is Starfarer coming out?” to “When is Starfarer/the next release coming out?”
Since the answer is the same for both

September 16th, 2012 at 9:34 pm by
chevbob

This feature will be fully modable?

September 18th, 2012 at 3:07 pm by
fri

@chevbob: Hmm. Not sure that’s necessary – I think the answer to that question explains the situation adequately.

@fri: As much as possible. It depends on what you mean by “fully” – you wouldn’t be able to radically change the system itself, but all the skills are being implemented the same way a mod would do it.

September 18th, 2012 at 4:06 pm by
Alex

The system sounds good as you described it, so there is no need to alter that i think.

But altering the speed of earning experience, the strenght of the skills and the maximum of obtainable skillpoints would be interessting.

September 19th, 2012 at 10:01 am by
fri

I cant wait to try this! You are making a formidable work on this game and i think you have great ideas. Thanks for making this!

September 19th, 2012 at 12:06 pm by
Marco

@fri: Ah, I see – yeah, all that is moddable.

@Marco: Thanks for the support

September 19th, 2012 at 12:30 pm by
Alex

Everything sounds awesome!!! keep up the good work, this was THE GAME that I was waiting since i finished starcontrol2 almost 20 years ago. The only thing im worried about is the release date….common on guys, sleeping is for the weaks…..

September 19th, 2012 at 3:50 pm by
fede

Another way you can impliment the soft cap is to have skill points or exp after battles and such and let the player spend them on increasingly more expensive skills. I suppose that would lead to major min maxing however

September 20th, 2012 at 12:55 pm by
Wendigo

respeccing characters? possibly with an xp or credit cost?

September 21st, 2012 at 7:55 am by
medikohl

I’m not too fond of complete respeccing as it makes all character progression choices void as you end up being able to change whatever you want, even with a cost fixed to it.

A limited respeccing could be useful, removing any of the last 5 points attributed for example (like they did in TL2 with 3 skill points).

September 22nd, 2012 at 8:54 am by
Troll

I usually don’t completely replay a long game just to try different progression choices. if there isn’t a respeccing button, then I will probably try to edit the save games or use cheat engine to change skills and see what they do.
that’s why I don’t care whether there is a respeccing button much, but the button will be handy.

September 22nd, 2012 at 11:23 am by
xyz

If there was a respec bitton each time youu use it should go up in price on top of a being a large percentage of yor current money. However ths system also needs a minimal amount of money to use, depending on your level ect. just my idea for it.

September 22nd, 2012 at 5:14 pm by
Farlarzia

I’m mostly excited about this update because of Fleet Logistics as a skill; I miss being able to steamroll the HDF >:)

September 22nd, 2012 at 7:34 pm by
MajorTom

So how will officers fit into the game, now that this system is being implemented?

September 25th, 2012 at 11:17 pm by
Degraine

I just want to say “I can’t wait anymore” :D:D:D

September 26th, 2012 at 3:42 am by
xyz

Maybe Officers will unlock certain global Skills?

September 26th, 2012 at 5:25 pm by
fri

Perhaps a % multiplier on your skills in those areas applied to the fleet they’re controlling?
Or they have their own skill trees that apply to their fleets?
Or something else..? :-p

September 27th, 2012 at 6:36 am by
chevbob

can officers be modded?

September 27th, 2012 at 6:57 am by
xyz

Hey, are you going to add ships bigger than those currently in the futere? Like, much bigger? Like, moonsized big? With dozens of large mounts? Because that would be amazing.

October 5th, 2012 at 3:44 pm by
Casper

It would. Maybe in mods but not in core I think But there will be larger and a bigger variety of ships i think might get added

October 5th, 2012 at 6:38 pm by
Farlarzia

“Jack of all trades, but a true master of none, certainly better than a master of one.”
Both symbolizes me, and the level cap. I like the idea of a soft cap, where you can be good at everything, but not best.

October 5th, 2012 at 7:41 pm by
The Soldier

“Hey, are you going to add ships bigger than those currently in the futere? Like, much bigger? Like, moonsized big? ”

Would only make sense if we could shoot / break big chunks off the giant ships reducing them to current capital-ship sized components, which would become disabled. This way a giant ship – broken into 7 – 8 current capital ship-size pieces – would become lootable and the loot of course would be proportional to the number of disabled (not disintegrated) pieces.

October 6th, 2012 at 3:55 am by
mercy

The ships are as big as they have to be, what would be the point of a ship the size of a moon? it wouldn’t be good at anything, thus just a huge waste of credits, there are ships around 2000 pixels long if you look into mods however.

October 7th, 2012 at 9:30 pm by
ValkyriaL

a huge ship is good for being a boss.

October 7th, 2012 at 11:28 pm by
xyz

“a huge ship is good for being a boss.”
Maybe the Behemoth could be hurt by your fleet using repeated attacks. You could shoot its parts off, which cannot be rebuilt in a short time then retreat. Repair your fleet, come back and meet the wounded, charred Boss again and start to gradually shoot it apart and it gets smaller with each attack of yours.

However: new smaller inner sections on the Behemoths body would “come to light” as its bigger destroyed parts break off. New types of weapons could greet your repaired flotilla.

October 8th, 2012 at 4:18 am by
mercy

i don’t think having bosses in this kind of game would fit in. Larger ships maybe, but no bosses. Just my opinion.

October 8th, 2012 at 7:22 am by
Farlarzia

Agreed. The sector can barely put together an Onslaught, so how is it supposed to be able to make something so much bigger than that?

October 8th, 2012 at 3:45 pm by
Minno

>When can I expect this to be out so I cross out a week in my calendar accordingly and get a desk side stock of food?

which food is good for eating while playing Starfarer? the game takes both of my hands to play. eating potato chips or some other snack will get my keyboard and mouse dirty.

October 9th, 2012 at 4:49 am by
xyz

” The sector can barely put together an Onslaught, so how is it supposed to be able to make something so much bigger than that?”

If you played Master of Orion 2 you know “the sector” is just one group capable of building. There are truly alien civilizations, not really limited by resources of one mere system.

October 9th, 2012 at 8:44 am by
mercy

I think larger ships such as Supercarriers and titans will be reviled once more systems are added. with factions that can afford to make them. Corvus just doesn’t have the capacity to pull it off.

October 9th, 2012 at 8:50 am by
ValkyriaL

Mods might be able to make such huge behemoths of spaceships? It doesn’t have to be in the game if it is possible to make through mods. I don’t know if there is a cap on size of hulls so correct me if there is

October 9th, 2012 at 11:55 am by
Otwinterkart

I don’t think ‘it can be modded in to doesn’t need to be in the base game’ should be the attitude, I think they should add these kinds of things themselves in the base game…

October 10th, 2012 at 5:39 am by
bills6693

Having huge ship would mean i would move really slowly. i wouldnt be able to catch any smaller ships and most of the weapons would be out of range most of the time. It just doesnt make sense. nothing would want to fight and would just wanna retreat constantly unless there were loads which still doesn’t make sense. TH stuff your suggesting would have to be bigger than the largest battlefield even provided in the game right now.

October 10th, 2012 at 3:09 pm by
Farlarzia

And please let me be able to buy long bows and the other fighters i cant remember the name of ingame. i really bugs me.

October 10th, 2012 at 3:10 pm by
Farlarzia

when will we have access to this alex?

October 11th, 2012 at 12:25 am by
Chaincat

@Chaincat: When it’s ready, of course

October 11th, 2012 at 12:41 am by
Alex

It has been a month since this post. Update pls

October 11th, 2012 at 11:57 am by
Bribe Guntails

its ready when its ready. he doesn’t have to post new things if he hasn’t been working on new things which he hasn’t. he has been working on this. if you wanna see whats been done so far then check the forums.

October 11th, 2012 at 12:54 pm by
Farlarzia

is it that I use the fighters wrongly?
I think long bows are quite underpowered given their costs and fleet points.
they can die faster than the cheapest fighter and their weapons don’t do much damage.
plz update this too.

October 12th, 2012 at 4:22 am by
xyz

They are quite weak. They need at have a longer range more speed and more def. They could then attack from range while staying at a distance against most. Also reduce maneuverability if you do actually do this

October 12th, 2012 at 1:07 pm by
Farlarzia

Fighters are meant to be like that. They have the power to regain ALL fighters lost in combat (so long at least one in the the wing makes it back) if there is a carrier on the map. Not so weak now, huh?

Besides, some carry torpedoes, Light MGs, PD lasers, and a wide variety of other weapons. Fighters are my best friend, if you are in the game long enough to realive thier importance and effect on the battlefield, respect them some more.

October 13th, 2012 at 3:12 pm by
The Soldier

WE are talking about the long bow, not fighter in general. I love them. i have 3 Xyphos wings, a dagger wing, The current best carrier in game, a paragon and 2 of the ships that have the bots that regen and have loads of stuff, and the super cargo ship (this is what i have in storage0 every cloaking ship, the teleporting shit, 2 of the electric shooting ships another paragon 5 wasp wing and more. Trust me i love fighters.

October 13th, 2012 at 9:05 pm by
Farlarzia

Then why do you say they’re weak? They’re possibly the greatest asset on the battlefield.

Even then, long bows are still a good thing. They’ve got a Sabot missile and a Burst PD laser. It’s a good loadout, if you ask me, and it’s the only fighter aside from the Xyphos wing, that has an Omni shield. Epic fighter, in my mind.

October 14th, 2012 at 8:09 am by
The Soldier

You cant even get in campaign vanilla
only in mission. THey are quite bad at the moment IMO

October 14th, 2012 at 7:00 pm by
Farlarzia

Nope, I tried them in the various missions. Versus a dominator, they’re quiet annoying. With them on your side, I find then prettyu good.

October 14th, 2012 at 7:41 pm by
The Soldier

yes against a slow moving target but again any slightly faster enemies they suck IMO

October 15th, 2012 at 11:02 am by
Farlarzia

Yea i must admit i havent had much chance to test out the longbow. Not liked them the little i tried of them. But it must be noted that i dont like most of the fighter combos i’ve tried either. In campaign i tend to run one of the smaller carriers, 2 thunders wings for taking control points, either 2 wasp wings or 2 Xyphos wings as backup control point takers/light escorts, and a rotating roster of mid/high tech crusers and capitol ships, depending on what i personally feel like piloting. I love the feel of outmanouvering a onslought or paragon in a Conquest getting behind them and opening up with the torpedoes is the best feeling in the world.

October 16th, 2012 at 11:03 am by
N1ghteyes

I like being the paragon with no conquest to fight me. I need to play the conquest more. i can definitly afford it!

October 16th, 2012 at 12:03 pm by
Farlarzia

I prefer having an Onslaught with a maneuvrability hull mod and outmaneuvering other ships with it, it fells great, and wroks quite well. Though I tend to reduce side weaponry to mostly anti fighter / missle to allow more frontal firepower and lasting shields.

October 17th, 2012 at 8:55 am by
Troll

Yea the onslaught is friggin deadly when used right. I havent mastered it yet, put most of my piloting skill into getting the conquest and the paragon nailed down. Conquest for hit and run or flanking a group of ships, paragon for some dangerous longer range attacks. With the paragon i like putting the lance’s on the turrets so i can hit smaller ships with it at long range. Feels like its much more versitile with that settup

October 17th, 2012 at 11:37 am by
N1ghteyes

Once the reaches some kind of completion, (or the illusion of complete) This should be greenlit, I mean, we’d all vote for it!